Dawn of the Final Day

This was it; the final day of class. When I woke up this morning, I could hardly believe that three whole weeks had passed by since I first stepped onto campus. I’ve come to love my class, so knowing that today’s class would be the last was very upsetting.

The morning class played out like any other. Jeffery went over our last set of cases: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Gratz v. Bollinger, Grutter v. Bollinger, Richmond v. Croson, and Adarand Constructors v. Peña. The final topic was Affirmative Action.

Jeffery also introduced us to the Scrutiny Test, which is a set of requirements that help decipher whether a law or policy is constitutional or not. In total, there are three level of scrutiny:

1.       Rational Basis Scrutiny:

·         The challenged law or policy serves a legitimate “state interest”. A state interest is defined as anything that the state wants to do and has the power to do.

2.       Intermediate Basis Scrutiny/Exacting Scrutiny:

·         Serves an important state interest and or something that is substantially related to serving that interest.     

3.  Strict Scrutiny:  

·         Serves a compelling state interest.

·         Has a narrowly tailored to serve interest. A narrowly tailored inters is a really specific purpose that does not go on to accomplish other peripheral goals.  

·         Accomplishes it goal by the least restricting means possible.

By using this test, the court was able to decide whether the method used to abide by Affirmative Action was constitutional or not. The decision varied case by case, depending on the methods in questions.

For lunch, the others and I decided not to eat out in order to savor our last few moments on campus. After I had finished eating, I went to the library in order to meet with my debate team. Before I went to the library, I stopped by my dorm only to be met with an interesting sight.   In front of my dorm room, Carman, there was a cast and crew filming for a television show called Royal Pains. While I had never heard of the show before today, it was still really exciting to see a real film set. While exciting, it was also somewhat of a bother; since the filming was going on both inside and outside Carman, it made going in and out of dorm quite a hassle.

The afternoon session was entirely devoted to our debates. This time, our only judges were Luke and Jeffery. My group went last, and due to time restraints, we ended up having to stay after class in order to finish. In the end, we tied with the other team, and since there was no time for a tie-breaker we were unable to decide a winner. With class officially over, the others and I said our goodbyes to Luke, Jeffery, and classmates before heading back to our dorms to rest and pack.

Despite the sad farewells and undecided debates, one good thing came out of today’s class—I got an A on my paper! I’m really glad to see that my hard work paid off, considering that I spent a very stressful day on that assignment.

After school, Lucas, Rowland, Aurea, Adrianne, Lenny, Morvarid, and I decided to spend one final night together by walking along Highline Park and the Brooklyn Bridge.

As much as I missed home, I think that I might miss New York and my new friends even more. I can always go back home, but trips like this are once in a lifetime, which makes me wish that this trip could be a little bit longer.

As of now, I’m completely packed and ready to leave in the morning. All I need now is a goodnight’s sleep and a one final glimpse of New York City.